From the Comments: One Dallas City Hall Employee Who Will Take Complaints

​It's been said often in recent days: The city's 311 service, on life support following budget cuts, is in need of 911. But we've found at least one City Hall employee willing to lend an ear, if not a helping hand: Danielle McClelland in Sanitation Services, to whom Daniel spoke yesterday for his OneDAY follow-up. McClelland also popped up in the comments following the Storm Debris Collection Map posting yesterday; those Friends who've noticed have been duly impressed and offered in return the requisite fist bumps and high-fives.

Here, then, is her comment pulled forward, in which she addresses just why it's taken so damned long for the city to clean up the crap left over from the February snowstorm. One note: McClelland's always been mighty helpful, dating back to her tenure in the city's Public Information Office.

As crews moved through areas early during the collection operation, if items had not yet been placed, we picked up whatever was there, marked the area and moved on to the next one.

The red areas of the map could have been better labeled "First pass completed" instead of "Completed". In fact, we're updating it now to this wording and adding a note that anything set out after the first pass will be retrieved once city crews make it through the yellow and green areas. Obviously, any items set out after crews came through are still there. But WE WILL GET THEM (after we've made it through the areas in yellow and green).

We have added extra crews and if adjustments need to made to the projected timeline, we'll do it. It's important for residents to know that this storm caused over 60,000 tons of damage. By comparison, the May 2007 storm caused 70,000 tons of damage and took three months to clear. We're on track to have this picked up in two months.